Once upon a time diplomats were rarely seen or heard in public. To do their vital work of privately communicating messages between national leaders they needed to be discreet, anonymous, detached, aloof, rarefied. In a word, invisible. When I joined the Foreign Office in 1979 the rules on such things were clear and strict. UK-based diplomats would never appear in the British media: that was what Ministers were expected (and wanted) to do. Overseas it was slightly different. British diplomats had some discretion to respond to foreign media requests for interviews and statements, but when in doubt, they should check with the FCO News Department in London. No Foreign Minister wanted to have their breakfast ruined by opening the newspaper to find a sensational report of something unexpected or unwelcome proclaimed by an FCO official overseas. Back then these limitations on diplomatic media appearances made sense: the media themselves were restricted. In Britain and elsewhere there were a tiny number of TV stations and relatively few newspapers. Official foreign policy pronouncements could – and should – be rationed accordingly to keep everything at a suitable level of sobriety. This all changed. Along came new technology, CNN, the internet, Twitter and Facebook, a proliferation of TV channels available across the planet at any time of day or night, digital radio, blogging. A Tower of Babel. A tsunami of noisy words, comment, pseudo-analysis and even, now and again, some facts. The media are increasingly no longer something separate or ‘above’ the general public. The media are the general public.
Charles Crawford
The Diplomat magazine (UK), (December 2011)
Read the full article here
It is fantastic news that the British Council have resumed their work in Libya this month. Their last eleven years of presence in the country were rudely interrupted when they were forced to close the office in February 2011.
The British Council’s work in the region over the coming months will include offering citizenship and arts grants to build up civil society; teaching English, including educational radio broadcasts across the country; using UK higher education expertise to create universities that value cultural activity and free speech; and developing curricula and qualifications for vocational education. This type of work has occurred across the globe – including North Africa and the Middle East – since the British Council was founded in the early 1930s. Historically it has enjoyed significant success, including in apartheid South Africa, in democratising countries in Eastern Europe, and in post-Soviet Russia.
John Glen, Member of Parliament for Salisbury
Haff Post, Politics, UK (December 5, 2011)
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It is clear that the Euro-crisis has and will have huge implications for EU foreign policy. A lot depends on what happens in the next months – the solution to the Greek or Italian problems, the contours of a multi-speed Europe and how messy a solution or non-solution to the euro-crisis will be. Things can get worse, or they can get better. But it is already possible to take a snapshot of the foreign policy implications of the Eurozone crisis. The picture contains a push to the background of all foreign policy issues, followed by fewer foreign policy resources and a coma for EU soft power, made worse by the fact that the EU understanding of power is so unhedged.
euobserver.com (November 25, 2011)
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Branding strategist Peter Economides talks about Rebranding Greece at the 11th International Conference “Aristoteles” of the Hellenic Management Association, hosted at Thessaloniki (November 17, 2011).
The video is available here.
Ομιλία του Peter Economides με θέμα “Rebranding Greece” στα πλαίσια του 11ου Διεθνούς Συνεδρίου “ΑΡΙΣΤΟΤΕΛΗΣ” της ΕΕΔΕ στη Θεσσαλονίκη (17/11/2011).
Το video είναι διαθέσιμο εδώ
Debt growing, unemployment spiking and crime on the rise as politicians bicker over the dying embers of a country that has lost the trust of its European partners: If Greece were a product, you would be pulling it out of stores, taking it off shelves and dumping whatever stock you had left. Or maybe not. Maybe you would have the crazy idea that this is just the right moment to rebrand your flagging product and sow the seeds of success.
Brand strategist Peter Economides knows about taking brands at their lowest ebb and turning them into world-beaters. He was part of the team that helped create Apple’s “Think Different” campaign in 1997. At that point, the computer manufacturer was on the wane — the public and the media had lost interest and the firm’s finances were in a mess. The campaign, featuring iconic 20th-century figures such as Maria Callas and Muhammad Ali, transformed Apple’s image and set it on the way to becoming one of the world’s largest companies today.
By Nick Malkoutzis
E-Kathimerini (November 17, 2011)
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As world and Asian leaders gather this month in Cannes for the G20, in Honolulu for APEC meetings, and in Bali for the East Asia Summit, a phenomenon coloring some observers’ perceptions of global politics and economics is the alleged decline of the United States. Since the outbreak of the international financial crisis in 2008, the question of whether the United States is declining has appeared in China and in other countries. Some people, including some Americans themselves, even believe “an irreversible decline” has begun in the United States, and that the world is entering a “post-American era.” National power and international balance of power―and perceptions of them―are indeed very important strategic issues. Due to the United States’s special international status, to accurately understand and judge the United States’s strength and status based on facts has become a major strategic, policy and academic issue faced by governments of all countries around the world as well as the academic world, business circles, media and people in all countries. Since the U.S. economy has run into a downturn during the financial crisis and after the crisis ended, and all kinds of difficulties and problems have stood out. Prominent questions placed in front of the United States and the world include: Is this a short-term and partial issue faced by the United States or is it going to be a long-term trend? Does it mean that the entire country of the United States is moving toward a decline? What are the implications for the global system, and for individual countries?
BROOKINGS (November 14, 2011)
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On 1 December 2010, the European Union (EU) inconspicuously launched the new European External Action Service (EEAS). Much of the world was unaware that anything had changed. But despite its quiet beginnings, the EEAS is actually a major innovation in the field of diplomacy as the first supranational diplomatic service of its kind. To be sure, it was not created from scratch. It builds upon the infrastructure of the 136 Commission delegations around the world that were already in place. But the powers of the new EU delegations are significantly broader and more ambitious than the old Commission delegations. Rather than being responsible for enacting the policies of just one institution, the EEAS is charged with coordinating, shaping, and enacting the entire body of EU foreign policy, under the command of the EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton. In this sense, rather than being an offshoot of just one EU institution, the EEAS is set to become the embodiment of common EU foreign policy, and is in the process of cultivating a distinctive institutional identity.
Of all the Lisbon Treaty’s innovations, the EEAS most demonstrates the EU’s commitment to smart power. I define smart power as the strategic and simultaneous use of both hard and soft power. The EEAS is still in its first year and it is too soon to know what role it will ultimately have, but its very existence is an important indication of the EU’s evolving approach to foreign policy. From the 2003 Iraq war to the current Libya crisis, it is easy to point out the recent, high-profile episodes in which member states were not readily able to coordinate their foreign policies, but it would be a mistake to draw any conclusions from these events alone. As discussed below, from a longer-term perspective, the fact that Europeans were willing to launch an ambitious, new multinational diplomatic institution shows that they are taking smart power seriously. This bodes well for the EU’s ability to be better prepared in the face of crises, and to become a more consistent foreign policy actor.
Mai’a K. Davis Cross – The CPD Blog (November 3, 2011)
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Once upon a time diplomats were rarely seen or heard in public. To do their vital work of privately communicating messages between national leaders they needed to be discreet, anonymous, detached, aloof, rarefied. In a word, invisible. When I joined the Foreign Office in 1979 the rules on such things were clear and strict. UK-based diplomats would never appear in the British media: that was what Ministers were expected (and wanted) to do. Overseas it was slightly different. British diplomats had some discretion to respond to foreign media requests for interviews and statements, but when in doubt, they should check with the FCO News Department in London. No Foreign Minister wanted to have their breakfast ruined by opening the newspaper to find a sensational report of something unexpected or unwelcome proclaimed by an FCO official overseas. Back then these limitations on diplomatic media appearances made sense: the media themselves were restricted. In Britain and elsewhere there were a tiny number of TV stations and relatively few newspapers. Official foreign policy pronouncements could – and should – be rationed accordingly to keep everything at a suitable level of sobriety. This all changed. Along came new technology, CNN, the internet, Twitter and Facebook, a proliferation of TV channels available across the planet at any time of day or night, digital radio, blogging. A Tower of Babel. A tsunami of noisy words, comment, pseudo-analysis and even, now and again, some facts. The media are increasingly no longer something separate or ‘above’ the general public. The media are the general public.
